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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey,

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Speaker 1: it is October, and we, if you haven't noticed, are

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Speaker 1: covering a lot of topics that are around kind of

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Speaker 1: the October theme of horror and Halloween, but also things

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Speaker 1: like being dead or burials. Are for today, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: get real literal with it and talk about Halloween costumes.

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Speaker 1: But we also want to let you know that towards

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Speaker 1: the end of the month, we're gonna be doing two

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Speaker 1: kind of special things that we want our audience to

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Speaker 1: know about. The first was that we're gonna be periscoping

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Speaker 1: our listener mail starting on October twenty three, which is Friday.

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Speaker 1: So if you're on Periscope or if you're not, sign

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Speaker 1: up for it and you can check us out responding

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Speaker 1: to our listener mail and kind of interacting with our

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Speaker 1: audience in real time on that platform. Yeah, and if

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Speaker 1: you don't know what periscope is, don't worry. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know to light few weeks ago. So we'll put up

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Speaker 1: a blog post as well at some point here that'll

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Speaker 1: give you the deeds on what exactly we're talking about exactly.

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Speaker 1: We'll be pushing the information out on our social media

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Speaker 1: channels as well, which include Facebook, Twitter, and tumbler on

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Speaker 1: all of those platforms were known by the handle blow

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Speaker 1: the Mind. And we don't just post our own stuff there.

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Speaker 1: We curate content from all the kind of weird science

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Speaker 1: e stuff that we find across the internet. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: if you want to be included in that listener mail,

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Speaker 1: don't forget that. You can always reach us at the

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Speaker 1: email address Blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that we have coming up at the

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Speaker 1: end of October is the return of our video series

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Speaker 1: Monster Science. Robert, you want to tell him a little

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Speaker 1: bit about this? Yeah, join h Dr Anton Jessup, a

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Speaker 1: kind of a daytime horror host VHS era basement creep

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Speaker 1: who's going to walk us through the real world science

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Speaker 1: behind us some rather outrageous monster movie nasties. Can you

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Speaker 1: give us a preview of what kind of monsters we're

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Speaker 1: gonna see in this? So yes, we're gonna you're gonna

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Speaker 1: look at shambling mushrooms, You're gonna look at werewolves. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna look into a big Trouble a little China one

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Speaker 1: of the creatures from that as well. That's exciting, as

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Speaker 1: well as a certain character from Mortal Kombat. So oh

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Speaker 1: cool cool. So what's great about that is you've got

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Speaker 1: a wear Wolf episode coming up with that. We just

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Speaker 1: published the episode on Wolf Spain. Uh and, so you know,

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Speaker 1: we're trying to tie things together a little bit here.

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Speaker 1: We also have an episode coming out about Egyptian mummification,

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Speaker 1: and we have a mummy episode of Monster Science from

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Speaker 1: the first season. So October, you can see, is our

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Speaker 1: favorite month, which brings me to today's episode, Robert, what

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Speaker 1: are you gonna be for Halloween this year? We'll see

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Speaker 1: this is a this is a complicated question, um with

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Speaker 1: me because I have the boy. The boy's gonna dress

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Speaker 1: up and uh and and me and my wife have

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Speaker 1: done kind of like combo costumes in the past, but

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Speaker 1: now we have this, uh, this weird extra actor in

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Speaker 1: the scenario. So like last year, we did a Twin

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Speaker 1: Peaks thing where I remember that where I was um

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Speaker 1: the comic clock and character the lady. Yeah, my wife

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Speaker 1: was a blog lady and we dressed our son up

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Speaker 1: as the dancing little guy. Um and and my my

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Speaker 1: father in law played the tall man. Oh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do remember seeing that picture. Yeah, that was a

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Speaker 1: great idea. Yeah, so that one works. But now he's

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Speaker 1: he's a little more insistent, like he wants to be

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Speaker 1: a giraffe, and like, you know how it's hard to

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Speaker 1: work a giraffe into a team costume effort. Yeah. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: The only thing that comes to mind is like, what's

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Speaker 1: that elephant children's story? Bob are like that? I don't

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Speaker 1: want to dress like, yeah, you're not. You don't strick

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Speaker 1: me as the book? Yeah I would. I would love

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Speaker 1: to do a mummy like com Blue cost him, where

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Speaker 1: we all dress up as different takes on money. He

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Speaker 1: could be a giraffe mummy. He could. Yeah, there's no

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Speaker 1: reason why they wouldn't have mummified a giraffe. That would

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Speaker 1: have been an interesting process in bombing all those draft organs. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would think so. So Yeah maybe mommy draft We'll see.

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Speaker 1: How about yourself. I haven't nailed it down yet, but

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Speaker 1: I have this old prison outfit that I used for

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Speaker 1: a video I shot one time. So I'm kind of

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Speaker 1: considering doing a Hannibal lecter thing. Uh, but it would

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Speaker 1: involve me having to be strapped down to a dolly

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Speaker 1: and being pushed around by somebody. And I don't think

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Speaker 1: I can talk anybody into being you know, the orderly

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Speaker 1: Barney from the from the asylum that pit Annibals. And

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Speaker 1: that's the thing about it's about certain combo costumes. They're

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Speaker 1: not all even handed. Sometimes they require somebody to be

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Speaker 1: something kind of boring. Yeah, well some people are into that.

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Speaker 1: I don't think my wife definitely wouldn't want to be Barney,

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Speaker 1: so we'll come up with something maybe she can be

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Speaker 1: Will Graham. Yeah. So the reason I ask is because

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about Halloween costumes and how

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Speaker 1: they relate to our culture but also to our identities

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Speaker 1: and how we form and change our our identities in

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Speaker 1: conjunction with what we're you know, costuming at Yeah. It hard,

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Speaker 1: it's a really it's a really fascinating topic because when

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Speaker 1: you put on a mask, when you put on a costume,

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Speaker 1: you're engaging in a in a very very power, a

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Speaker 1: full act. Here you are becoming somebody else, not only

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Speaker 1: externally but internally, as we'll discuss, and it's been a

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Speaker 1: it's played a vital role in traditional religions throughout history. It's, uh,

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Speaker 1: you can you can see both positive and negative, very

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Speaker 1: negative aspects of mask and costume usage throughout time, and

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Speaker 1: yet today we often just relegate it to just sort

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Speaker 1: of childhood silliness. Right, Oh, the kids are gonna put

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Speaker 1: on masks and go around parading through the community. Well

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Speaker 1: when but if you stop and you think about it,

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Speaker 1: it's it's terrifying, you know. Yeah, And I think that

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Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made to that, and we're

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Speaker 1: going to get into this that it's definitely over the

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Speaker 1: last thirty years or so, maybe forty years or so,

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Speaker 1: it's started to become an adult thing, at least in

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Speaker 1: American culture, and that the rise of cosplay in sort of,

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Speaker 1: I guess nerd culture, but you know, I think it's

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Speaker 1: gotten to the point where cosplay is is beyond nerd

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Speaker 1: culture now. I was in the grocery store the other

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Speaker 1: day and there's a magazine dedicated to cosplay that can

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Speaker 1: buy at your local supermarket. So I feel like that's

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Speaker 1: sort of elevated past, you know, just just for geeks

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Speaker 1: when you can buy it like on the shelf there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's great to hear that, especially looking back, Like

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Speaker 1: I definitely remember a time when I was still trigger treating,

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Speaker 1: but among my peers, I was probably too old for

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Speaker 1: such nonsense. And occasionally you would run, you would trick

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Speaker 1: or treat at a house and you'd see somebody your

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Speaker 1: own age in they're not in costume, and the kind

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Speaker 1: of at you, like, what are you doing? But then

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Speaker 1: you know what they weren't doing, having fun exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the dude in question I'm thinking about, it's

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Speaker 1: like I looked him up on Facebook and he's still

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Speaker 1: not having fun to this day. So I'm proud that

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Speaker 1: I wore my my Halloween costumes, you know. But the

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Speaker 1: thing is, is that guy and I'm sure, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: anybody listening to the episode right now can identify with

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Speaker 1: costuming and that sort of role play, identity change element.

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Speaker 1: And there's a science to this too. This isn't just

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Speaker 1: gonna be us riffing about what it's like to wear

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Speaker 1: Halloween costumes. There's been a ton of studies on this way,

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Speaker 1: more than I thought we would find. Actually, yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a like I knew there would be a tie to

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Speaker 1: the topic of inclothed cognition that we'll talk about, and

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Speaker 1: a long time listeners to the show might remember an

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Speaker 1: episode in the past the dealt a little bit within

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Speaker 1: closed cognition, but there's there are a number of studies

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Speaker 1: that deal specifically with Halloween costumes and how Halloween costumes

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Speaker 1: impact both children and adults. Yeah, so there are two

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Speaker 1: specific things that I want to sort of start off

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Speaker 1: with us maybe like thesis statements for this episode, and

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Speaker 1: we'll see if they're approved by the evidence that we

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Speaker 1: go through throughout the episode. The first is that there's

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Speaker 1: this idea that Halloween is a and the costumes that

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Speaker 1: we see in the acts that we see during it

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Speaker 1: are a reflection of what's happening in our culture at

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Speaker 1: that point in time, and that it's sort of, uh

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Speaker 1: is also a transgressive element, right, that there are boundaries

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Speaker 1: within our society that are some of them are asking

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Speaker 1: to be pushed, and Halloween is the time when that happens.

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Speaker 1: And you know, in some degrees that can lead to

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Speaker 1: social change and other degree reas as we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: it's maybe a kind of social regression as well. But

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Speaker 1: so I want us to keep that in mind that

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Speaker 1: it it seems to be this period of time that

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Speaker 1: reflects kind of I hate using this term but the

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Speaker 1: zeitgeist of what's going on in American culture at the time,

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Speaker 1: and I understand that it's becoming more popular in some

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Speaker 1: European nations as well, so um, you know, perhaps they're

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Speaker 1: seeing that as well. Well. You know, just over the

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Speaker 1: past ten years, you can look to one particular Halloween

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Speaker 1: costume is playing a significant role in uh in social movements,

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Speaker 1: that being, of course, the V for Vendetta mask, which

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Speaker 1: is Halloween costume mask based on the motion picture. That's

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Speaker 1: always fascinated me from the perspective of you know, and

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Speaker 1: I'll talk about this later, but you know, in my

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Speaker 1: outside life, I write comic books, and I attend a

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Speaker 1: lot of comic book conventions throughout the year, and so

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Speaker 1: I see a lot of costumes. And when the movie

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Speaker 1: came out and all of a sudden, I started seeing

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Speaker 1: a lot of people both at these shows and at

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Speaker 1: Halloween wearing the Guy Fox mask, it really struck me

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Speaker 1: as being ironic because there's such a um as you

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Speaker 1: just brought up, there's such an association and symbolism of

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Speaker 1: rebellion associated with that that mask that I don't know

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Speaker 1: necessarily that the customers themselves even knew it necessarily even

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Speaker 1: though the movie sort of presents that as a as

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Speaker 1: a symbolic point. Yeah, yeah, it's been. It's been a

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Speaker 1: fascinating transformation with that particular man of the particular character. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So before we start talking about these studies, which you know,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be working our way from nineteen seventies six

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Speaker 1: up until present day, there's been so many studies. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I want to just throw out this fact for you.

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Speaker 1: In one point four billion dollars were spent on Halloween

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Speaker 1: costumes in America alone. And that's according to the National

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Speaker 1: Retail Federation. That is a tremendous sum of money. And

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Speaker 1: I guess I never really stopped to think about it before.

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Speaker 1: But of course, like I don't know what it's like

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Speaker 1: in other parts of the country, but here in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: we have these these like pop up halloween stores where

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Speaker 1: like there used to be uh you know, like a

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Speaker 1: department store like a Maze's or something, and it's since left.

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Speaker 1: And for just the month of October, these halloween stores

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Speaker 1: move in and all they sell their costumes and Halloween

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Speaker 1: knickknacks and things like that. Uh. And I always it

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Speaker 1: always struck me as like, wow, like can you turn

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Speaker 1: a profit just in a month like that, and obviously

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Speaker 1: you can if there's that much money going into it,

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Speaker 1: and it's especially interesting to see that it's doing that

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Speaker 1: kind of business. After all those kids melted in the

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Speaker 1: Silver Shamrock mass That was a shame. That was a shame.

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Speaker 1: I was young when that happened. But yeah, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe in the snakes came out of their eyes. And

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Speaker 1: we are, of course referring to Halloween three colon Season

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Speaker 1: of the Witch, one of our favorite movies here. It'

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. In fact, last year, Uh Joe,

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Speaker 1: superproducer Noel and myself got together with our partners and

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Speaker 1: watched that movie. I don't know if it was on Halloween,

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Speaker 1: but it was like the week of Hallow and it

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Speaker 1: was great fun. Yeah, I think I watched it for

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Speaker 1: the first time last year as well, um at night

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Speaker 1: by myself the family was sleeping. But yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it's it's a very flawed film, but it has some

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Speaker 1: It has some very just fantastic elements in it, from

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Speaker 1: the just wonderful soundtrack by John Carpenter and All and

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Speaker 1: Horth to Uh, the weird mix of like androids and

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Speaker 1: occult magic and big scary corporations. Like on paper, it's

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Speaker 1: it's a fabulous film, right. We were saying before the

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Speaker 1: taping that it would be it's ripe for a remake,

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Speaker 1: but it probably will never get remade. Like the idea

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Speaker 1: of so the central conceit of the movie is that

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Speaker 1: there's an evil magical corporation that is producing is it

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Speaker 1: three Halloween masks? It's three. Yeah, it's like a witch

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Speaker 1: of Skull and I don't want jack o lantern? Is

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Speaker 1: that the other one? Uh? And and their children's masks

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Speaker 1: and if these children wear their Halloween masks and watch

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Speaker 1: a like evil magical commercial simultaneously, they will all die. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they will die and serve as some sort of a

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Speaker 1: child sacrifice and they ancient ritual. It's a bizarre movie,

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Speaker 1: but it's this was before Basically the idea I think

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Speaker 1: was that the Halloween movies, before they were dominated by

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Speaker 1: Michael Myers, were supposed to be like an anthology series,

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Speaker 1: just like a kick start anthology Halloween. So each year

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Speaker 1: we'd get a different Halloween film with a different plot.

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Speaker 1: And sadly that didn't happen because nobody like Halloween three

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Speaker 1: until it had time to uh you know to cure,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not sure over over the years. It's like

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Speaker 1: a fine one. It is. It is a fine one

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Speaker 1: that not everyone's palate is going to be susceptible to.

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Speaker 1: But at heart Halloween three season of the which is

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Speaker 1: about masks changing children absolutely. Now in the movie it

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Speaker 1: changes them into a pile of goog and snakes and whatnot.

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Speaker 1: But in reality it does seem to change our children

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Speaker 1: into something else. Yeah. I wonder if, well, I wonder

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Speaker 1: if those screenwriters of Halloween three were inspired by this

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Speaker 1: first study, or maybe the first two studies we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about, because the first was in seventy six,

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Speaker 1: the next one was in seventy seventy nine. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the whole time when I'm reading these, I'm picturing the uh,

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Speaker 1: the sort of idyllic uh nineteen late nineteen seventies setting

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Speaker 1: of the at least the first two Halloween pright. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: this is the ninete steady effects of d individualization variables

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Speaker 1: on stealing among Halloween trick or treaters. This was published

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Speaker 1: in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology again in

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Speaker 1: seventy six February. So, well, this is what happened the

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Speaker 1: psychologist involved covertly observed the behavior of a about a

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Speaker 1: thousand trick or treaters at twenty seven different Seattle homes.

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Speaker 1: So each each house has the same setup, one bowl

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Speaker 1: filled with candy and an additional bowl filled with pennies

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Speaker 1: and nickels, because you know you're going to you're treating,

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Speaker 1: you want to get some pennies and nicols. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that strike struck me as weird. But I was also

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Speaker 1: born a year after the studies conducted, so maybe it's

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Speaker 1: something I missed out on. So um. The researchers answered

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Speaker 1: the door when the Halloween trick repeaters show up, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes the researcher asks the matt the costume children what

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Speaker 1: their names are. Oh, you're the life looking which what's

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Speaker 1: your name? Oh it's Susie. Other times they let the

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Speaker 1: children retain their anonymity. They can continue to just be

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Speaker 1: werewolves and mummies and witches. Right, and that's important because

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Speaker 1: it helps to reinforce the identity. Right, Okay, are no

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Speaker 1: longer Susie and yeah, instead they are you know, Broomhill

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Speaker 1: to the Witch and uh, you know Oscar the money

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Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So at this point, the researchers say,

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Speaker 1: all right, I have to go deal with something else

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Speaker 1: inside the house, and we shut the door. Only take

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Speaker 1: one piece of candy and then they shut the door.

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Speaker 1: But they're they're watching through the peephole the whole time.

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Speaker 1: Nice scientific use of the people. They have like a

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Speaker 1: nest thing that they could mount on their wall and

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Speaker 1: watched through their smartphone. Yeah, they're just going around like

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Speaker 1: he can through a curtain and scribbling on a notepad.

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Speaker 1: The results, though, were kids who were allowed to remain

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Speaker 1: anonymous stole money and extra candy roughly three times as

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Speaker 1: often as those who gave up their names, and kids

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Speaker 1: who came in groups, so just a complete pack of

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Speaker 1: you know, short little gremlins. Um. Those who came in

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Speaker 1: groups both named and anonymous were more than twice as

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Speaker 1: likely to steal as those who came alone. Wow, okay,

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Speaker 1: so I don't I guess the study. The findings of

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Speaker 1: this aren't all that surprising, knowing what I know, just

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Speaker 1: from living life and having costume before and knowing other

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Speaker 1: human beings. So that the the idea of the anonymity

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Speaker 1: this is pre social media too, so I think that

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Speaker 1: that has something to do with it as well. Right,

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Speaker 1: that we now know that anonymity leads to people doing

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Speaker 1: things that they think that they won't have repercussions for it. Right, Um,

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Speaker 1: But then that the group factor as well as is

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Speaker 1: the really interesting one. So how the pennies come into play?

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Speaker 1: Do they steal those as well? Nichols okay, And and

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Speaker 1: my my reading of this, the study they didn't even say, okay,

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Speaker 1: also you can take a certain amount of coins, but

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Speaker 1: right the coins they just left him there. It was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is just for decoration and then these kids scrap. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's also interesting to read this thinking about my

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Speaker 1: own interactions with grantities are like three year olds, but

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Speaker 1: watching them feed off of each other's energy, Like you

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Speaker 1: get to three year olds in a room and they'll

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Speaker 1: suddenly just start feeding off each other and displaying behavior

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Speaker 1: that individually they wouldn't do, but they just they just

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Speaker 1: like there's a heightened susceptibility to group think and uh

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Speaker 1: like you know, imaginative, Uh, the association. It's it's interesting. Well,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about this throughout this episode, and there's

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Speaker 1: a study that's coming up that specifically refers to it.

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Speaker 1: But that is like that zone that age around between

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Speaker 1: three and five is sort of that own where you're

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Speaker 1: still you understand sort of you know when people say, like,

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Speaker 1: you're a boy, or you know, you're um, you're from Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: Georgia or whatever, like you understand those words, but the

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Speaker 1: actual identity part hasn't really like all glamed together yet.

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Speaker 1: So the group think kind of thing seems to happen

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Speaker 1: a little easier at the age I mean, you are

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Speaker 1: observing it right now. Oh yeah, Like my my son

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Speaker 1: and his friend Leoh, they had a time at the

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Speaker 1: playground the other day where all they did is just

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Speaker 1: march around and enchanted. We are daddy elephants the whole time.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, and they don't do that on their own,

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Speaker 1: but together they engage in that. So I feel like

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Speaker 1: it's the same sort of energy at work now. I

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Speaker 1: miss that we need to needed to bring that back.

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Speaker 1: We'll have after this. We're gonna have a weird daddy

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Speaker 1: Elephants session in the office. Now. There's a nine nine

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Speaker 1: study that followed this up and and and indeed the

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Speaker 1: researchers here set out to replicate the results of the

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Speaker 1: seventy eight study. Uh and this one is titled Halloween

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Speaker 1: masks and d individualization. Uh. And this was published in

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Speaker 1: Psychology Reports April nine. So this time they looked at

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Speaker 1: fifty eight costume kids ages nine through thirteen, and all

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Speaker 1: of them in this cases are unaccompanied by adults, so

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Speaker 1: there are no adults there to, you know, to to

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Speaker 1: inflict rules and regulations on the Halloween traditions. They this time,

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Speaker 1: the researchers tell the children to take two and only

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Speaker 1: two pieces of candy from a bowl. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: they shut the door. The same situation takes place, they

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Speaker 1: peek around the corner through the people. This is what

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Speaker 1: they found. Mass children were significantly more likely to violate

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Speaker 1: the instructions grabbing a healthy fistful of candy sixty two

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Speaker 1: percent of the time versus thirty seven percent for unmasked counterparts.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting, especially because the age difference, so we're talking

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Speaker 1: nine to thirteen year olds here instead of the much

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Speaker 1: younger children in the first study. Also that what I'm

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Speaker 1: noticing is that they're completely different authors for both studies,

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Speaker 1: So this wasn't um the first team trying to replicate

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Speaker 1: their efforts. It was an entirely different team, probably in

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Speaker 1: a different part of the country. Well, and I think

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Speaker 1: it's worth us explaining what they mean when they say

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Speaker 1: d individual adan here. Right, So that is a psychological

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Speaker 1: process by which a person's identity is subsumed. This is

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Speaker 1: the This isn't my language, obviously, obviously I don't throw

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Speaker 1: subsumed around a lot. But it's subsumed by the identity

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Speaker 1: of a larger group. And in this case, the mask

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Speaker 1: thing can can play into it. Right. Uh, I wonder

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Speaker 1: if the kids were masked and they were by themselves,

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Speaker 1: if this you know how this would play out? Well?

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Speaker 1: In this uh, this is a particular study. They were

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Speaker 1: they were unaccompanied by adults, so there were no adults. No,

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Speaker 1: I mean no other children too. I guess, like, what

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Speaker 1: creepy kid goes around all by themselves trick or treating

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Speaker 1: at nine years old. Well, in the first study, they

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Speaker 1: did find that kids who came in groups were more

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Speaker 1: than twice as likely to see what's those who came along.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there's definitely uh, you know, one is potentially

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Speaker 1: a problem, but you get two together and they're just

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Speaker 1: going to fall into that that group identity of the

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Speaker 1: trick or treating fiends. So okay, So all right, the

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Speaker 1: first thing that we're establishing here is that, uh, costuming,

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Speaker 1: especially during Halloween, provides a certain amount of anonymity, and

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Speaker 1: that within a group, it provides the potential for this

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Speaker 1: d individual ation in which you divorce yourself from your

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Speaker 1: day to day identity and allow yourself to be absorbed

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Speaker 1: into the identity of this larger group. It's almost like

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Speaker 1: a cult type. Yeah, I mean it's instantly. It makes

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Speaker 1: me think of various and often vile scenarios where you

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Speaker 1: have hooded individuals creating about and doing things. It's it's

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Speaker 1: the same energy, it's the same mechanism, but entrusted to

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Speaker 1: children as opposed to taken on by adults. Well, let's

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00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,920
Speaker 1: let's speed it forward a little bit, uh to maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe a period of time that I'm sure everybody can

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Speaker 1: relate to the being a child and dressing up in

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Speaker 1: costume and maybe grabbing a fist full of candy. But

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Speaker 1: there was a study, uh, and this was cited. I

400
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Speaker 1: don't know if you noticed this, but this particular study

401
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Speaker 1: was cited across the board and all the studies afterwards

402
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Speaker 1: as like a sort of foundational sources studies. Yeah. Uh,

403
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 1: so it's called dressing in costume and the use of alcohol, marijuana,

404
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:29,360
Speaker 1: and other drugs by college students. So no surprise. Uh,

405
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Speaker 1: they did this study looking at twelve hundred college students.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember what area of the country it is.

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Speaker 1: They might have they might have split it up. Actually, uh,

408
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Speaker 1: and no doubt they found that those that were in

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Speaker 1: costumes were more likely to consume alcohol than those that weren't. Right,

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Speaker 1: and they were also more likely to use drugs over

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Speaker 1: the course of the night. Now, anybody who you don't

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Speaker 1: even have to have gone to college, anybody who's been

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Speaker 1: over the age of eighteen and has gone to an

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Speaker 1: adult Halloween party where people are in costume, I think

415
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Speaker 1: this will probably be a common experience. Yeah, I have

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Speaker 1: to admit that deer in college and and uh the

417
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Speaker 1: time period following college, the most hungover I ever managed

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Speaker 1: to get. Both times it resulted from a Halloween party. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I definitely saw some crazy stuff at Halloween parties when

420
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Speaker 1: I was living in the Boston area. One time I

421
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Speaker 1: went to a Halloween party. These people lived on the

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00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: grounds of It was an abandoned This is going to

423
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:33,359
Speaker 1: sound made up, but it's a real thing. It was

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Speaker 1: an abandoned mental institution on the grounds of a cemetery

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Speaker 1: just outside of Boston top of an Indian ground. I

426
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Speaker 1: don't know if there was an Imperial ground, but they

427
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: definitely had a Potter's field next door where you could

428
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: you could see it. You know what I mean by

429
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 1: Potter's Field that they just had like the bricks with

430
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,359
Speaker 1: numbers on them and things like that. Uh. And the

431
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: people that I knew who lived there, Uh, they were

432
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:59,040
Speaker 1: basically paying rent to the town to live in this

433
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: thing and make sure people didn't come by and vandalize it. Um.

434
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:06,360
Speaker 1: So they threw this crazy Halloween party and I mean

435
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: you could you went into the basement of this place

436
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 1: and they had gurneys and strange jackets and like all

437
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 1: the files on the patients were still there. That was

438
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: the weird part to me is that the like the

439
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,199
Speaker 1: privacy element was not at all thought about. Essentially had

440
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: a Session nine. It was very much like that. Yeah. Yeah,

441
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:28,120
Speaker 1: and I decided to go as a f X twin this. Yeah.

442
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: That was which incarnation of it was the window liquor

443
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 1: I had. You know, they actually made masks or that

444
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 1: you could print out that we're that face. I was

445
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: going to ask how you maintained that smile. Yeah, I

446
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: had the mask and I had a white suit on

447
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 1: the whole time. But uh, yeah, I saw some crazy

448
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:50,199
Speaker 1: stuff at that at that abandoned metal asylum. So I

449
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 1: believe this study, I think most of us do. I

450
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't qualify this as a study that would blow your mind.

451
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind. But this definitely

452
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: adds more fodder to our principle here, right, that like

453
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: the costuming element, uh allows your identity to sort of

454
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: be more fluid and flexible. Yeah. And I mean, you know,

455
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,239
Speaker 1: studies like this, they're not necessarily saying, hey, here's this

456
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: crazy thing about your life you never noticed before, but

457
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: saying hey, here's some science to back up that thing

458
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: that we've all noticed. Because sometimes the thing that we

459
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: think we know, when you apply the rigors of science

460
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: to it, you realize, all right, this doesn't actually work

461
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,479
Speaker 1: the way we were thinking on surface level. So I've

462
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: studies like this are just as important. Yeah. And so

463
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: there's also this is when things start to get dark too.

464
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: So um and no surprise, you know, I think that

465
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: the older that we get that the costuming element brings along.

466
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: Like I said at the top, right, it's a pushing

467
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 1: of boundaries, so it brings along some taboo elements to it.

468
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: So there's a study done in two thousand seven about

469
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: um basically race and mother ing in Halloween costumes, and

470
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 1: it was specifically focused on college students. So again this

471
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: is a you know, isolated to the college student area,

472
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,719
Speaker 1: although a lot of the examples that they came up

473
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: with were not necessarily isolated to that group. So this

474
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: study is called Unmasking Racism, Halloween Costuming and Engagement of

475
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: the Racial Other, and it was published in Qualitative Sociology.

476
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: And basically the authors of this piece they present at

477
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: the top in their abstract. They say that they think

478
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: of Halloween as being a constructive space where people have

479
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: the opportunity to engage in different identities, which includes racial concepts,

480
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: and that there are some people who argue not necessarily

481
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 1: these authors, although I think there's something to this, that

482
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 1: Halloween is what we would think of as a tension

483
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: management holiday. It's different from you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving,

484
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: which probably create more attention, uh. And they compare it

485
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: to like New Year's or Mardi Gras, and that it

486
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: allows it sort of frees us up from society Almoors

487
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: and gives us, you know, an opportunity for rebellion. It's

488
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,360
Speaker 1: they call it a ritual of rebellion that permits possible

489
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: countercultural feelings, right uh. And in this case, you know,

490
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: they say, well, you know usually these holidays or the

491
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: idea behind this is it's a reversal of social roles. Um. So,

492
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: for instance, like subjugated groups groups and a lower position

493
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 1: are able to assume positions of power. And they connect

494
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: this too. And I'll explain this theory a little bit

495
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 1: more later. But um, there's a Russian theorist named Michael

496
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: back Team and he has the kind of the big

497
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: thing that he's known for theory wise is the carnivalesque.

498
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: And they connected up to that theory, this idea of

499
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: medieval europe carnivals. The same kind of thing was good

500
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: people are in mass parading about creating mischief. The the

501
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: the shift of power that takes place where often you

502
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: have a fool king or the fool leader of the festival. Yeah,

503
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: yep uh. But they also say, you know, there's this

504
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: idea about Halloween in particular that's connected to this. The

505
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: reason why in the US we give it such a

506
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: national status, uh is because it fosters that kind of

507
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: social inversion. Right. So, Um, while holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving,

508
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,719
Speaker 1: for instance, are more institutionalized and focused on tradition and

509
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: family and things like that, Halloween people think of Halloween

510
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: as being that one night of the year where they

511
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: can let go and they can enjoy a degree of

512
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: license that they could that would otherwise never be attainable. Right. Um,

513
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: Basically they can get away with things that they wouldn't

514
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: be able to get away with normally. So these the

515
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: authors of this piece, though, they say, Okay, that's good

516
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: and fine, but there's a racial element that's coming into

517
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: play here that's displaying some some disturbing patterns of how

518
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: white costumers are using that opportunity to uh not identify

519
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: with other races, but to sort of uh make fun

520
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: of and and sort of reinforce stereotypes of other races

521
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,159
Speaker 1: that they have. Yeah, and in this I think you

522
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: you see varying levels of this. So so it's easy

523
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: to imagine a straight up racially offensive costume, you know,

524
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: where you're just you're just basically dressing up like the

525
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: worst kind of stereotype for a particular racial group. But

526
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, you see, and I've definitely

527
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 1: seen people do this before, where you're you're going after

528
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: certain cultural icons. You want to you want to be

529
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: that cultural icon, and you either don't realize or you're

530
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: a little numb to the to the realization that to

531
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: try to become that icon as a as a white individual, UM,

532
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: you're you're engaging, at least in some light racism. You know,

533
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: like if you you decide, oh, well, you know, I'm

534
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: a big hip hop fan and I really like this

535
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: particular artist, that doesn't mean you can necessarily dress up

536
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: as as him or her. In fact, that they noted

537
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: that stuff like that happened at such parties. UM. One

538
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: example that they had was they were apparently and the

539
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: way that they studied this was that they had six

540
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: d and sixty three three college students across I believe

541
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: it was Southeastern America collect journal entries about their costuming

542
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: experience over the course of Halloween. And this isn't just

543
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: what they costumed as, but what they saw at the

544
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: parties that they went to. UH and what was reported

545
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: that there were two white men who went in black

546
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: face as Venus and Serena Williams and so this is

547
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, so not that long ago. Uh. And

548
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: then there was, um, there were three women, all of

549
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: different ethnicities who wanted to do the Charlie's Angels, the

550
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: movie version of Charlie's Angels, and so um a Caucasian

551
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: woman ended up doing the Lucy Luke character and was

552
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: you know, like painting on makeup to make her self

553
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: locastion and like you said, not really understanding it. But

554
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: on the reverse side, they reported that there was a

555
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: black male college student who went as Eminem. So there's

556
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: a lot of this playing around with race and gender

557
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, trying to explore identity. But

558
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: at the same time, like some of some of these

559
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 1: instances uh, as identified by the authors, weren't necessarily experimental,

560
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: but we're more reinforcing ideas that they already had. Yeah,

561
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: and an implicit racial bias definitely playing into a lot

562
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: of these where it's it's not even happening at a

563
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: at a you know, a conscious level, you're not you're

564
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: not really thinking about it, but any of these various

565
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: u UM, implicit biases rise to the surface. Yeah, I

566
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: think this would be one of those situations if and

567
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: they talked about it a little bit in this study,

568
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: but that like, if you called out somebody for something

569
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: like this, they would probably be shocked, right, they would go, oh, well,

570
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: I no, I'm not racist. That's not what I was

571
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: intending at all, Right, And in fact, they the whole

572
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: idea here is that they thought of Halloween as being

573
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: a safe context for exploring this kind of thing, but

574
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: also that it's, uh, it's a time when the potential

575
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: for any kind of insult is completely suspended, right, Like

576
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: I think I just saw, like, not that this would

577
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: be insulting, but it's just kind of stupid, like, uh,

578
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: like a week or two ago that like one of

579
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: the most popular costumes this year is a sexy Donald Trump,

580
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: Like you can you can buy that off the rack, um,

581
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like I think that that's the

582
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: kind of thing going on here. But at the same

583
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: time as the authors are arguing that it's reinforcing racial

584
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: bias and stereotypes. Yeah, it reminds me too of I

585
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: believe it was the first Halloween immediately following nine eleven

586
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: in which a picture made the rounds of a couple

587
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: who had dressed like somebody addresses the twin hours and

588
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: the other person addressed as an airplane. And it's funny

589
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: that you say this go ahead because I have a

590
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: personal story. I'm just saying it made the rounds. And

591
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: quite clearly they were approaching this from the standpoint of

592
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: it's a safe halloweens, a safe zone, and an outrageous

593
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: costume is allowed, even if it is really too soon

594
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: for that particular joke at that at that given point.

595
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: And this was this was the month afterward, right, yeah,

596
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: this was very very soon. So I uh, specifically remember

597
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: that Halloween. Right afterward, a guy who I knew went

598
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: to a Halloween party as a dead pilot, uh, and

599
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: he thought it was the funniest thing ever, and that

600
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: he was you know, he wasn't he was trying to

601
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: be offensive, but he was also just trying to kind

602
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: of like again like push the boundaries, get a rise

603
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: out of people. Um. And I remember him thinking it

604
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: was like this super clever, funny thing and it just did.

605
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: It fell real flat with with everybody at the party. Yeah. Now,

606
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: on the racial side of the situation, I have to

607
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: admit that I'm I'm a big fan of some terrible

608
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: movies and one terrible movie that I really enjoy is enough.

609
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: But trouble, I know what you're talking about, really really

610
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: bad film with all sorts of really cool like horror elements,

611
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: sort of tales from the crypt type elements thrown throughout.

612
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: And then there's a great scene where Digital Underground performs.

613
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: So it's Humpty hump. Uh you know, get that? And

614
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: so part of me has always wanted to be Humpty hump.

615
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: But but I but I can never be Humpty Hump.

616
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: I can never take that on as a costume because

617
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: of the racial aspects of doing it. And I'm comfortable

618
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: with that, I'm not complaining about it. But like that's

619
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: an area where like the voice that says, wouldn't it

620
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: be cool to dress this Humpty hump, and the other

621
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: part of me has to say, theoretically, it would be cool,

622
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: but you would probably be you would probably be crossing

623
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: a line, and ultimately it would not be a comfortable scenario.

624
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: Well exactly, So I think that what the authors of

625
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: this study would argue, then, right, is that like your

626
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: preconception of race is that you understand that that would

627
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,959
Speaker 1: be crossing a line that you know is not necessarily appropriate.

628
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: Whereas a Caucasian male who is in college and decides

629
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: to go as Humpty hump maybe already has some preconceptions

630
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: about what that means, right in fact, like that's the

631
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: the kind of rapper outfit, or like the other one

632
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: that they talked a lot about was that you can

633
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: buy prepackage sort of like ethnic thug outfits from these

634
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: Halloween stores, or at least you could at the time

635
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: they were doing this. Um, that that enhances your perceptions,

636
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: your stereotypes of things, right um, and that it doesn't

637
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 1: necessarily allow them to have the opportunity to to find

638
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: the new beliefs or to learn and change. I don't know,

639
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested, Like I wonder if if you

640
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: do something like that and then you're sort of performing

641
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 1: this other, this imaginary other that you have of like

642
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: what it would be like to be in digital underground,

643
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: Like like, uh, does that afford you the opportunity to

644
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: sort of like put yourself in somebody else's shoes? I

645
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, it's um. The authors of this piece

646
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: certainly didn't think so. But like the Digital Underground example,

647
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: I can The thing is, I can definitely imagine someone

648
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: approaching that instead not even thinking about Humpty Hump as

649
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: an African American man and thinking, well, it's just it's

650
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: a ridiculous character with a funny nose and big fur

651
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:14,800
Speaker 1: coat and he talks in a funny voice, and he

652
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 1: got busy in a backstage bathroom. Yeah, and yeah, loft

653
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: his nose in a horrible accident. But um, yeah, but

654
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:26,359
Speaker 1: but but but in doing that, you glide right over

655
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: the racial connotation. So yeah, absolutely, so, I mean, like,

656
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure, like I know, I've definitely seen stuff like

657
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: this at parties I've gone to before. I'm sure a

658
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: lot of people have. But they provided some very concrete

659
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: examples outside of the six hundred and sixty three college

660
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 1: students who reported for this study. Um, and one of

661
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: them was I didn't know about this. Apparently in two

662
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: thousand three, Louisiana State District Judge Timothy Elander went to

663
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: a Halloween party in blackface and he had an afro

664
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: wig on and a prison jumpsuit. I think I remember

665
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: seeing when called him out on and he said, oh what,

666
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: It's just a harmless joke, you know. And then you

667
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: think about the connotation of like, well, this guy whose

668
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: job it is is to decide whether or not people

669
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: go to jail or stay free, Like this is like

670
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: hugely inappropriate. Um. But then, um, there's also like you know,

671
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: just dominated in the media reports of people wearing black

672
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: face at Halloween parties and in such outfits, enacting images

673
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: of police brutality, cotton picking and even lynching. Um. So

674
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: I mean that again too, it's like clearly showing that

675
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 1: like you don't really have all that much of an

676
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: understanding for what it means to be of a different ethnicity,

677
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: you know, those are the things that you associate with

678
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: it like like uh So, anyways, that the third thing

679
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting where they they talked

680
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 1: about these prepackaged costumes. There's two in particular they pointed

681
00:36:56,239 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: out from two thousand to One was called the Vato Coco,

682
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: which was this stereotyped mask of a Latino thug. And

683
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: then the other one was called the Kung fool uh

684
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: and it was like a caricature outfit, like a kind

685
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: of like a a karate um what do you call him?

686
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:17,280
Speaker 1: G uh like outfit? Um, But that it also included

687
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: like a mask that made your eyes look slanted and

688
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: like buck teeth that you would insert in your mouth.

689
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 1: So it was like this real like racial physical stereotype

690
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: of being Asian, and this is two thousand two. This

691
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: isn't like nineteen sixty two. This is this is just

692
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 1: like thirteen years ago. Um, So you know, they point

693
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: out like that they think that the Halloween has sort

694
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:45,959
Speaker 1: of been thought of as a cultural space in which

695
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: they can they being the people wearing these costumes, can

696
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,839
Speaker 1: sort of let this racist ghost out of the box.

697
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: That's how they put it, not me. Uh, it's there.

698
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: They get a little metaphorical with their language and the

699
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: Halloween themes and stuff in this article. I wonder would

700
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: race Ghost to be an appropriate Halloween costume, though it

701
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: maybe even were carried out with enough ghost of a

702
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: racist on American Horror Story and the which one I

703
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: didn't watch that SI, I think it was if I

704
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: remember correctly, I think like one of the witches was

705
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: was black and she was able to use some kind

706
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:24,720
Speaker 1: of spell that summoned, um the zombies of like racist

707
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: farmers from around the area or something. Somebody correct me

708
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:29,720
Speaker 1: out there if I'm wrong on this, but I remember

709
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: there being a very strange Halloween themed episode where they

710
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: did this. It was like the punishment for these guys

711
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: being slave owners. I think was that she was able

712
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: to like summon their their spirits up again later. So

713
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 1: I mean think about that, right, Like that's on national television,

714
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: and um, that's not reinforcing stereotypes necessarily, but but you

715
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like there's these kind of like

716
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: roles and identities that people are trying out and trying

717
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: to understand things that are different from themselves, mothering, you know,

718
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: they all kind of play hand in hand. I have

719
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: to admit that I after reading enough, researching enough about

720
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: which craft persecution, I'm I'm I'm a little weird about

721
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: when I see like, um, which costumes, but also like

722
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: you know, the new Vin Diesel which Hunter movie is

723
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: the hero of this picture and and it's it's kind

724
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: of unsettling when you think of witchcraft persecution and and

725
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: and it and and how these these stereotypes were used

726
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: to send so many innocent people to their torture and death. Yeah. Absolutely,

727
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: I mean, m I yeah, I agree with you, And

728
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 1: especially when you think about it in the context that

729
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: like these prefabricated which costumes are being sold and you know,

730
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: people are making what what did I say, one point

731
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: for billion dollars off of this costuming industry, uh, celebrating

732
00:39:55,360 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: the persecution and torture and death of this again the

733
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: subjugated group, right, yeah, I mean, you know, it's not

734
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: it's certainly not one to one with some of the

735
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: racial issues we're talking about earlier. Uh, And it's still

736
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated because you have you have various

737
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: you know, myths and folk tales weaving their way in

738
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: their popular media, springing up out of equal parts of

739
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: fiction and history. So it's it's a convoluted topic. But

740
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: I I have to admit some of the witch costumes

741
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: at least, you know, caudle light to go on for me. Yeah, yeah, well,

742
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's it's again back to that whole

743
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: taboo thing that uh, the symbol of the witch, both

744
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: in the guilt that we kind of feel when we

745
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: look back at the history of it and also the

746
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 1: witches being like outside of the community, right, is like

747
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: the perfect kind of boundary pushing taboo for Halloween. In fact,

748
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: one of the articles that I'm about to get into

749
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: talked about how during Victorian time, Victorian time, you know,

750
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: those all of the times the America can women specifically

751
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,439
Speaker 1: with dress dressed either as Egyptians or Gypsies, because those

752
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: were the two like most taboo kind of uh exotic

753
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: other costumes that they could wear. And I guess you

754
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: still see people of varying races dressing up as ancient Egyptians.

755
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: Like maybe enough time has passed that there's like less

756
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: people don't think of ancient Egyptians as being a contemporary race.

757
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: But it's more of a like almost like dressing as

758
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 1: an elf, right right, right, dressing as a character from

759
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: a movie or something. Yeah, exactly, Alright, we're gonna take

760
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. All right,

761
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:48,280
Speaker 1: we're back, So okay, we've we've spotlighted that the masks

762
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: in the costumes allow children to sort of feel like

763
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: they can get away with certain things that they get

764
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: subsumed into a group. We've spotlighted how it sort of

765
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: can change how we think about identity and ace, and

766
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,839
Speaker 1: and how it can also serve for us to get

767
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: more drunk and to do a lot of drugs during Halloween.

768
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:09,399
Speaker 1: But then there's obviously a gendered element to it as well. Right, Um,

769
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,720
Speaker 1: any buddy who's seen over the last again, like thirty

770
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: or forty years there's definitely been an element of sexiness

771
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: that's been brought into female attire. And in fact, I

772
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 1: do want to point out, like one of those um

773
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: sources that I'm going to use when we're talking about

774
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: this is from our sister podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You.

775
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 1: Kristen and Caroline have done at least two episodes on

776
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: this topic, and Kristen has a really great post on

777
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: the term slut owen uh and what that means in

778
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: the history behind it, and I don't really want to

779
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 1: bring that into it, but that there's there's things connected

780
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: to it in that post that I think have to

781
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: do with our conceit in this episode, which is that

782
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: costumes allow you to perform a different identity. Okay, I

783
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: mean it matches up with a lot of what we've

784
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 1: been talking about already and that you you take on this, uh,

785
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: this costume, you take on this different identity, and uh

786
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: you have a little more license to be uh sexier

787
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: than normal, more revealing than normal, a little more amorous

788
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: than normal. Yeah. Absolutely, And in fact, there's a history

789
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: professor uh that is named Nicholas is named his name

790
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: is Nicholas Rogers uh, and he actually says you know,

791
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 1: the costuming tradition of Hallow Mass goes all the way

792
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 1: back to being both a prayer for the dead as

793
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: we sort of think of it um with the Halloween connotation,

794
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: but also a prayer for fertile marriages. So there was

795
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:39,760
Speaker 1: already an element of kind of gendered sexiness to it um,

796
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,240
Speaker 1: not as such, not as we would think of it today,

797
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: but like for instance, boys inquire used to dress as

798
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: female virgins for Hallow Mass. So cross dressing and sex

799
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: and virginity and fertility were all elements from the start. Okay,

800
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: well that's good for anybody that is planning a kind

801
00:43:57,800 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: of sexy costume this year. And if somebody calls you

802
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: on it, why aren't you a zombie? Why aren't you

803
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: dressed up as a sexy Egyptian or something, you can say, well, actually,

804
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: I'm tying into some of the I'm doing some history.

805
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,919
Speaker 1: This is my history project. Um. So he talks also,

806
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: this is where I got the thing about the Victorian costumes.

807
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: Was also this Nicholas Rogers guy, and he said that

808
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 1: that at that point in time, just like as we

809
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: were just talking about, the Halloween was thought of as

810
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: a knight to do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do

811
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: and to have people look at them, right, So that's

812
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: why they're dressing as Egyptians or Gypsies. Then in the

813
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, this interesting thing happens where the sexy costume

814
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: both for men and women emerged. Uh and Christian's research

815
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:48,919
Speaker 1: and then this article that I found in Time called

816
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: the Definitive History of the Sexy Halloween Costume both points

817
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: to this that there were a lot of Halloween parades

818
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: in gay neighborhoods in New York, West Hollywood, and San Francisco,

819
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: and out of these big, kind of raucous bacchanalia parties

820
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: came this sort of genesis for what we think of

821
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:13,720
Speaker 1: now is like the modern sexy girl costume. Right, Um,

822
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: so you get that, that event happens, and then, just

823
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: like with anything, businessmen and marketers see that and they say, well,

824
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: that seems like it's something that would make a lot

825
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: of money. So they start designing these costumes, selling them

826
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 1: and targeting adults. And so that's when we start to

827
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 1: see sort of towards the late seventies, this emergence of

828
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: the adult Halloween experience coming back. It's not just for kids, anymore.

829
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: And so you and I were just talking about this earlier,

830
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: like when we were kids in the early eighties. Uh,

831
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: there was sort of that weird stigma of like, well,

832
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: at a certain point, you shouldn't be out trick or

833
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: treating anymore, you know. Like I definitely remember there was

834
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: a point where like I was out and like a

835
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,080
Speaker 1: parent would answer the door and say like, aren't you

836
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 1: a little old for this? You know, And I'd come

837
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: up with some excuse like what you were in costumer

838
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 1: I was, Yeah, See, that's the thing. I mean, if

839
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: you're if you're an older kid and you're showing up

840
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: at the doorstep and you have no you're asking for candy. Yeah,

841
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: I think that's you're kind of breaking the rules here exactly.

842
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: I don't care how old you are, but put them

843
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: put some sort of mask on, so you you find that.

844
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: So there's a two thousand six study on children's costumes

845
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: done by a sociologist named Addie Nelson, and she found

846
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: that not only were they distinctly gendered, but that for women,

847
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: the costumes that you know, these are off the rat

848
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 1: costumes not necessarily what people are coming up with on

849
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: their own. They're usually princesses or beauty queens for the

850
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: girls choices. Uh. And then there's also in two thousand

851
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: and six, there was a New York Times article quoting

852
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: a costume merchant and he said that since the early

853
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 1: two thousand's, the sexy iterations of costumes have compromised nine

854
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:58,720
Speaker 1: of the female costumes that he sells at his store.

855
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: So um, Christian, our colleague basically makes the point, Okay, well,

856
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: what's the reason behind the sexy costume boom? Because they're

857
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,439
Speaker 1: popular because both women and girls are buying them. Uh.

858
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: And you know there's marketing behind it. There's money to

859
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: be had there. So yes, it's a cultured identity thing,

860
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: but it's also an economic thing as well. Uh. And

861
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:23,879
Speaker 1: I'll also point this out for Kristen because if any

862
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: of you out there I've ever watched Kristen's video series

863
00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: for stuff Mom never told you, you you know that she

864
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: likes to get into costume and characters. Uh. And she

865
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: speculates that we're moving now from a period of just

866
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: the sexy Halloween costumes to the ironic sexy costumes. So

867
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: I think what she means by that is, like, I

868
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: see this a lot when I go to like pop

869
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 1: culture conventions. Uh, like like sexy Darth Vader. Yeah, people

870
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 1: sexifying characters or costumes that you wouldn't traditionally think of

871
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: as being sexy. I saw a sexy version of what's

872
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 1: the name of the main villain from Fury Road. Oh god,

873
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's a thank

874
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: you super producer Noel just told us that it was

875
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: a Morton Joe. Yeah. I saw a picture of that. Yeah.

876
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: He and and of course that on its own is

877
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: an interesting character to see so embraced among costumers and

878
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: cosplay because he said, it's a horrible guy. He's just

879
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: a horrible individual that I mean to embody any aspect

880
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:31,280
Speaker 1: of him. Um, if you're thinking, you know, deep about

881
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,799
Speaker 1: it is troubling. I can top that. My wife just

882
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 1: showed me the other day that a friend of a

883
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: friend got a sleeve tattoo of a Morton Joe on

884
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: her arm. I think consider this. That movie just came

885
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: out like what three months ago. Uh, great movie, But like,

886
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 1: what are you saying about the idea that you're like,

887
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: I really like that warlord rapist who like keeps women

888
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: locked up as like concubines, bastically and that's not just

889
00:48:58,480 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: a for those who you haven't read it, that's not

890
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,799
Speaker 1: just uh, you know, subjective read of the film. Like

891
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: that is that's the plot of the plot of the movie.

892
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:08,400
Speaker 1: It portrays him as such, and the the the harem

893
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:10,879
Speaker 1: that he keeps. These are not you know, sexy doll

894
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: eyed individuals. These are abused and traumatized individuals based on

895
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: their treatment. I'll add to that. Another thing that I

896
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:24,439
Speaker 1: see very often at conventions that I don't understand, and

897
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,760
Speaker 1: you know, forgive me, uh, maybe you have an alternate

898
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: reading on this is um Watchman costplay when people costplay

899
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: as the comedian and the Golden Age Silk Specter together.

900
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: So if you've seen, if you've read the book, or

901
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: if you've seen the movie, you know, I guess spoilers

902
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: for it, but like those two have an abusive domestic

903
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: relationship that involves sexual violence. Uh. And you you know,

904
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: I see that a lot. I see a lot of people,

905
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,680
Speaker 1: the couples wearing those costumes together and kind of, you know,

906
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: walking around like isn't this fun? Isn't this cool? And

907
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:03,839
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get it, but clearly it has

908
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 1: something to do with with what's going on here, I

909
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 1: mean this costuming experiences outside of just Halloween, right, So, UM,

910
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: I imagine, and I'm sure there's studies that, if they

911
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 1: haven't been published already, are being written right now furiously

912
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: by some graduate student about pop culture conventions and costplay

913
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 1: that they also allow for exploration of identity for other

914
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:27,879
Speaker 1: ring for all these kinds of things that we're talking

915
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: about here, right, So what do we have next? What

916
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 1: what's the next on the plate? Stud So sticking with

917
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 1: the gender theme, there's two more studies I want to

918
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: talk about. Um. In there was a study published in

919
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: the Journal of Psychology called Age and Gender Difference in

920
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: Children's Halloween Costumes. So we're bringing it back to kids,

921
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: but we're sticking with the gender thing here. Uh. And

922
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,280
Speaker 1: it the people who wrote it predicted, uh that Halloween

923
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,720
Speaker 1: costumes for first and second graders would be less gender

924
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: stereotyped than those for preschoolers and children in kindergarten. So again,

925
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: remember when I was talking earlier that that zone of

926
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: three to five, the zone that your son is in

927
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: right now, Uh, that this is an area of time

928
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: that the authors speculate is when identity is still in flux, right,

929
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: And so there's an idea that gender really needs to

930
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: be reinforced these scenarios where the toddler, or not the

931
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 1: toddler really, but they the young child three four year old,

932
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: they say they want to dress as a princess, and

933
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: you say, like, hell you are, You're dressing as a

934
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 1: cowboy because I have a lot of expectations for your

935
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: your your gender preference here. Yeah, exactly, And their findings

936
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:40,280
Speaker 1: confirmed this. Uh so they found actually the older boys.

937
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 1: So when they're talking older boys, they're talking about like

938
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: I think over the age of eight, uh they tended

939
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: to prefer less masculine and more feminine costumes than the

940
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: younger boys did. And the older girls preferred more masculine

941
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 1: and less feminine costumes than the younger girls did. So

942
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:00,879
Speaker 1: there definitely was like a between the ages of three

943
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: and five, there's that like reinforcing gender thing, and then

944
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: there's like a period of time where they play or

945
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: maybe not play. I don't think there's like cross dressing

946
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,399
Speaker 1: as much as it's sort of like they're less concerned

947
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 1: by that, right, But then it evolves by the time

948
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 1: when we get into high school and college, as we've seen,

949
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: into the sexy costume stereotype, right, you know that makes

950
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: more you know sensor. You can imagine a uh, either

951
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,919
Speaker 1: a boy or a girl, and they're having a lot

952
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,359
Speaker 1: of expectations placed on them in the way that they

953
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 1: dress every day, as well as some of these specialty costumes.

954
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: Like there comes a point where you're gonna say, you know,

955
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: I would like to maybe wear something that's not pink

956
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: or you know, I would like to wear something that's

957
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:45,720
Speaker 1: colorful and flowing and um, you know, without and engage

958
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 1: in that possibility without all of the adult baggage that

959
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: the parents are are are possibly exactly how much of

960
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: it is the parents saying I think you should be whatever,

961
00:52:57,200 --> 00:52:59,879
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like in your case, best

962
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:05,479
Speaker 1: and giraffe, Really how about leather face? Yeah yeah, it's

963
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: a it's not gendered. You just want him to yeah

964
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, but but no, I mean, like I do

965
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: see that this kind of you know, gender openness and curiosity.

966
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: Even in my own son, you know, where he he

967
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 1: likes sees somebody playing in address and it's like I'd

968
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: like to run around address and you, of course, without

969
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: the adult baggage we place on that scenario, why not

970
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 1: I totally remember that period of time. There was a

971
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: point when I and my you know, upbringing wasn't particularly

972
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,360
Speaker 1: like conservative or I think of it as not being gendered,

973
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 1: but of course it was um and and saying like,

974
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted a Barbie doll to play with

975
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 1: because the the girls in my kindergarten class all have

976
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: these Barbie dolls, so of course I wanted one. Uh

977
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: And I was discouraged from that and and and it

978
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,239
Speaker 1: was really like I couldn't make sense of it at

979
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 1: that age because you know, they couldn't explain to me, well,

980
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: if you do that, that's going to say a certain

981
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: thing about you, and people are gonna make fun of you,

982
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: and that's going to subsequently reflect back on me, right.

983
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 1: Uh So it was it was an interesting kind of

984
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: thing to look back on that idea with any siblings.

985
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: I do, yeah, but they're ten years younger than me

986
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: because I I have younger sisters. So they were always

987
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: Barbie dolls in the house. So like they were they

988
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: were there, and you know, I would play with the

989
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: Barbie house. Sometimes they had a lot of cool stuff, yeah, sure, everything,

990
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,919
Speaker 1: but a toilet in there, well, right exactly. And if

991
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: you you know, as a as a kid of that age,

992
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: if you're using your imagination with your toys, the gender

993
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 1: element is probably not something you're even thinking of, right

994
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: But anyways, so so that ties back into what we

995
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier with the sort of preschooler Halloween mentality.

996
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: So it's it's gendered, and then it's not gendered, and

997
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: then don't forget. It also encourages you to steal or

998
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 1: take a lot of candy. There's one more study, uh

999
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:52,400
Speaker 1: that is called the Pink Dragon is Female, and it

1000
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand and the Psychology of Women

1001
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: cord Quarterly, And basically what they did was a content

1002
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: analysis of all the children's Halloween costumes that they could

1003
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,360
Speaker 1: find that were available, and they saw it as a categorization.

1004
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: They broke up into three categories, Heroes, villains, and fools,

1005
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: and they wanted to see whether or not these these costumes,

1006
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: you know, very very much like the last study we

1007
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,720
Speaker 1: were talking about, reproduce or reiterate conventional messages of gender.

1008
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: And what they found was that, yes, the female costumes

1009
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 1: were clustered around examples of femininity like we talked about

1010
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: earlier with the princesses and the beauty queens. But also, uh,

1011
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: there was a higher ratio of animal costumes for girls.

1012
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 1: And maybe I just never noticed this, or maybe it's

1013
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: because of my age. Food stuff costumes, So if girls

1014
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 1: didn't want to have gendered costumes, they could, I guess,

1015
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: be a strawberry or something or or what would well,

1016
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: that's one of one of the costumes from Killa Mockingberg, right,

1017
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 1: was addressed as food items. I don't remember that, you know,

1018
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: even with animals who have these gender stereotypes that we've

1019
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: encountered with my son's favorite, uh animal is the giraffe.

1020
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 1: And then you go and you try and find church

1021
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: for boys with girafts. You don't find them. You find

1022
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 1: the boys shirts have tigers and lions, and boys are

1023
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 1: not supposed to like herbivores for some reason. That's funny,

1024
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: because grafts can be pretty brutal and tough when they're draft,

1025
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: can look after after itself, bringing that neck around and

1026
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: throwing in an odd kick. Well, okay, so we've got

1027
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: the So the animals and food stuff seem to be

1028
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: the compromise for young girls. For young males, the costumes

1029
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:32,560
Speaker 1: are likely to feature villains, especially those that are symbols

1030
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: of death, which I don't know necessarily that how much

1031
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 1: I would read into that, given Halloween and the symbology

1032
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:42,280
Speaker 1: of death that that you know, floats around that holiday

1033
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: and anything. But um, they did find in this content

1034
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 1: analysis that less than less than ten percent of the

1035
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: costumes in two thousand were gender neutral, so the food

1036
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,359
Speaker 1: stuff items, I'm assuming those were the only ones, you know,

1037
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 1: And that more often that male costumes had occupational roles,

1038
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: right like I'm a doctor, I'm a welder, or whatever,

1039
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 1: I'm a podcaster, uh, And that the female costumes were

1040
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: usually based on what their appearance was in their relationships.

1041
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:17,959
Speaker 1: So all right, So to summarize, we've got, uh, the

1042
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: Halloween costumes build gender. They are a way that we

1043
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: construct race and identity. And then there's also a moral

1044
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 1: element that we've talked about, including both stealing and intoxication,

1045
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:33,919
Speaker 1: allowing you to engage in behavior that you otherwise, uh

1046
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't engage in or wouldn't engage to that degree, you know.

1047
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:40,080
Speaker 1: And one of the crazy things about this topic is

1048
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: that it's it's not just at Halloween. It's not just

1049
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:47,160
Speaker 1: when we actually actively engage in the wearing of masks,

1050
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: be it for fun or as part of a religious

1051
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:53,439
Speaker 1: ritual or what have you. But any time we put

1052
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: on clothing we're in, we're engaging in this kind of

1053
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: powerful rebecoming. Yeah, it's uh, you know, a form of communication. Yeah,

1054
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:05,919
Speaker 1: how we address the things that we own, the things

1055
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: that we wear, even down to like what kind of

1056
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: car you drive, or what kind of pencil you use

1057
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like all those things, whether we're conscious of

1058
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 1: it or not, are us communicating something about ourselves and

1059
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: identity to other people. Yeah. One observation that I keep

1060
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 1: coming back to whenever I dip my toe into this

1061
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:26,919
Speaker 1: uh this topic. Uh. It comes from a factless book

1062
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:30,920
Speaker 1: by Virginia Smith titled Clean A History of Personal Hygiene Impurity,

1063
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:34,960
Speaker 1: which deals mostly with with that very concept, the idea

1064
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 1: that there's there's physical cleanliness and the societea of spiritual

1065
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: cleanliness and to just become irreversibly interwoven throughout history and

1066
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:47,680
Speaker 1: many you know, I'm amazing and and sometimes very uh

1067
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 1: you know, missible ways. But she points out that modern

1068
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,959
Speaker 1: cultural sociologists describe the human body as an unfinished body,

1069
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: a body created by nature but finished by humans. And

1070
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: so each of us call all upon various bodies at

1071
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 1: various times, So there's a you know, there's a cybernetic

1072
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: element to this. You know, we're we're inherently augmented via technology,

1073
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 1: be that wrist watch or an implant, or just the

1074
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 1: clothing we wear to tweak who we physically are and

1075
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: therefore tweak who we are inside. Yeah, that's interesting, especially because, like,

1076
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, a topic that comes up on this show

1077
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:29,000
Speaker 1: a lot is trans humanism or post humanism, and just

1078
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:31,680
Speaker 1: thinking about it that way, like like we think of

1079
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 1: that as being a very kind of sci fi thing

1080
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:36,200
Speaker 1: that's coming down the road, but just think about it. Like,

1081
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 1: my dog doesn't wear clothes other than the collar that

1082
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: I put around his neck so I can walk him, right,

1083
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to express his identity within clothing. Uh,

1084
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: We're not the kind of people to do this, but

1085
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: some people put their dogs in little outfits right in

1086
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: order to sort of do that same thing, to project

1087
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 1: identity through that. Well, I mean, you look at the

1088
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: most primal example possible in a man edge. You know,

1089
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 1: some sort of a cave person in prehistory kills a

1090
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 1: wolf skins, it wears the wolf hide, and so on

1091
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 1: several different levels, Like on one level, it's it's an

1092
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 1: augmentation of the body for just purely to stay warm

1093
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 1: or even to provide some level of protection and combat,

1094
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 1: and then on on a on another level though, that

1095
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 1: individual is taking on the hide of the beast, the

1096
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: being of the beast, which you know we touched on

1097
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: a little bit in our Wolf Spane episode. That's one

1098
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 1: of the models for wear wolf transformation. Is you wear

1099
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 1: a magical hide, yeah, or or the right exactly like

1100
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: the kind of barbarian wearing like half hides, or or

1101
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: even like wearing like the fur over their head or

1102
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: something like in taking on the role of the beast

1103
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 1: in combat. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So when this we

1104
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: get into the idea of embodied cognition, which is a

1105
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:51,240
Speaker 1: philosophical model in which an agent's cognition, the way you think,

1106
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 1: the way you engage, the way you interpret the world

1107
01:00:53,280 --> 01:00:56,520
Speaker 1: is strongly influenced by aspects of an agent's body beyond

1108
01:00:56,560 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 1: the brain itself. So you know that entails not only

1109
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: how you feel about your body and how you appear,

1110
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: but then how you augment it through clothing. And to

1111
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: reiterate too, there is an episode of Stuff to Blow

1112
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: your Mind from a couple of years ago that that

1113
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:16,920
Speaker 1: you guys did specifically about in clothes cognition. So if

1114
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:18,520
Speaker 1: you know we're going to touch on it here, but

1115
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:20,560
Speaker 1: if you really want to take a deep dive, go

1116
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:22,240
Speaker 1: back and check that out, and I'm sure we'll link

1117
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: to it and then we'll have a link to that

1118
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: one on the landing page for this this episode. But yeah,

1119
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 1: you see this idea of the body as a constraint,

1120
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 1: like your body is holding you back from being who

1121
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: you are inside. The body is a regulator, so in

1122
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 1: this case, the the body's functions are are regulating cognitive activity.

1123
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 1: You can get into this whole mind body problem with

1124
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 1: it pretty pretty quickly. And this leads into an additional

1125
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: take on an embodiment that deals particularly with garments, and

1126
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 1: this is enclothed cognition. And this stems from three initial

1127
01:01:55,880 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: studies by Hajo Adam and Adam Glanski from Northwestern University

1128
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 1: and they've been examining the psychological and performance related effects

1129
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 1: that wearing specific articles of clothing have on the person

1130
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,920
Speaker 1: wearing them. And they actually coined this term in clothed cognition.

1131
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: And this is where we get the sort of doctor

1132
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 1: cosplay experiment, right, Yeah, Yeah, So in fact, they're their

1133
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 1: primary experiments out with this. So in in in one experiment,

1134
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:25,400
Speaker 1: they they found that people physic physically wearing a lap

1135
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 1: coat and that's key, not just looking at and at it,

1136
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 1: not just thinking about it. If they physically put it on,

1137
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:33,920
Speaker 1: it increases selective attention compared to when they're not wearing

1138
01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: a lap coat. So it's like putting on a thinking cap.

1139
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:39,280
Speaker 1: I thinking cap powered entirely by the symbolic nature of

1140
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,840
Speaker 1: the cap. We think of the doctors being who serious

1141
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: and an observant, And then when we put it on,

1142
01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:47,000
Speaker 1: even though we have no illusions that we are becoming

1143
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: a doctor, but we are. It's like we're wearing the

1144
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 1: hide of that wolf. We're wearing the hide of that

1145
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 1: doctor and in doing so becoming them a little bit cognitively. Yeah,

1146
01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on there, just in that one

1147
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:03,240
Speaker 1: small experiment in that it speaks to the kind of

1148
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 1: human nature, uh, adherence to cultural narratives and imagination. And again,

1149
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 1: you know, thinking back on Halloween and this idea of

1150
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 1: like is it for kids is it for adults? It's

1151
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 1: like we as adults every day are imagining and playing

1152
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:21,520
Speaker 1: out these games scenarios in our head. As we dress

1153
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:23,920
Speaker 1: up the way we do. Yeah, and they found in

1154
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:28,480
Speaker 1: some follow up experiments that it specifically had to be

1155
01:03:28,520 --> 01:03:30,200
Speaker 1: a doctor's coat if they call it was the same

1156
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:31,959
Speaker 1: lab coat and they said, oh, it's a painter's coat.

1157
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,000
Speaker 1: Didn't have the same effect. And in all cases it

1158
01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:38,520
Speaker 1: was the symbolic meaning of the the outfit plus the

1159
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 1: physical experience of wearing it. And uh So I think

1160
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 1: that's key to pretty much every model we've looked at

1161
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: here that you're taking on not just the appearance of

1162
01:03:48,440 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 1: the monster or the sexy Egyptian or what have you.

1163
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 1: You were taking on some aspect of at least what

1164
01:03:56,840 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 1: you presume to be the mind of that end of dual,

1165
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 1: of that racial group, all of that type of person,

1166
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,720
Speaker 1: or that just straight up monster. Yeah. And again I

1167
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:11,560
Speaker 1: think that that, you know, explains the surge and popularity

1168
01:04:11,600 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: of costuming and cosplay, uh in American popular culture right now.

1169
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 1: It's that has a lot to do with it. And

1170
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:22,480
Speaker 1: maybe Halloween that one day year isn't enough for that

1171
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:26,280
Speaker 1: kind of experimentation. People want to have more occasions in

1172
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 1: which they can do that and not have it be taboo,

1173
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: right So, and I mean that's why you see more

1174
01:04:32,120 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 1: and more of that these days. You see, like just

1175
01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:36,760
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, UM, we were going to talk about

1176
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:39,280
Speaker 1: Crampus a little bit. Maybe we'll do a Crampus episode

1177
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:43,920
Speaker 1: later on. There there's a local Crampus UH pub crawl

1178
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:47,560
Speaker 1: situation that goes on. People dress up like this hornted

1179
01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 1: um germanic monster and parade about. They've got this thing

1180
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:54,320
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta too. It's like they probably have it

1181
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:57,520
Speaker 1: another cities now as well. But it's a zombie walk

1182
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 1: and U doesn't really I mean, I think it's during

1183
01:05:02,200 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 1: October maybe, but I think it has more to do

1184
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:06,840
Speaker 1: with that the Walking Dead is shot here than it

1185
01:05:06,880 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 1: has to do with Halloween necessarily. But I mean they

1186
01:05:10,040 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 1: get like five people like all marching down the street

1187
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: through the city in zombie garb. So the rest of

1188
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:19,280
Speaker 1: the year you go to you go to various carnival situations,

1189
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: go to New Orleans, you go to to various cons

1190
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: and dress up as these individuals. So so yeah, we're

1191
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:28,480
Speaker 1: kind of creating more and more opportunities for UH, for

1192
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:34,160
Speaker 1: adults to engage in costume play and in costume recreation. Yeah,

1193
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: I think it speaks to UH. Like I said at

1194
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:41,240
Speaker 1: the top again, like, so Halloween is like a way

1195
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 1: to sort of reflect back what's going on in culture

1196
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 1: at the time and our sort of need for more

1197
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 1: opportunities to costume and uh play around with these identities.

1198
01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 1: Seems to be a reflection of that as well, right,

1199
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:58,400
Speaker 1: that there's more fluidity and flexibility, uh and acceptance of

1200
01:05:58,400 --> 01:06:01,600
Speaker 1: playing around with identity than the baby was when we

1201
01:06:01,600 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 1: were kids. Yeah. Yeah, back back then they were still

1202
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 1: into you know, you're taking on a particular identity, but

1203
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:08,480
Speaker 1: it was the one you had to keep for the

1204
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 1: rest of your life, right everything else. Yeah, yeah, so

1205
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm all in favor of donning those costumes. Yeah, well,

1206
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 1: that's why October is my favorite month of the year.

1207
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:22,160
Speaker 1: You know, I love I love October, not just for Halloween,

1208
01:06:22,200 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: but for all the things that kind of come along

1209
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: with it, the the autumn, the corn mazes, uh, hay rides,

1210
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:34,400
Speaker 1: all that stuff, Apple bobbing, and the podcast episodes and

1211
01:06:34,440 --> 01:06:38,520
Speaker 1: the related blog post. Absolutely nice segue. So again to

1212
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:42,959
Speaker 1: remind you, we're gonna be doing uh podcasts all month

1213
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: that are fairly tied into the month of October and

1214
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 1: too Halloween themes. But also we've got coming up at

1215
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:52,560
Speaker 1: the end of October, will be answering your listener mail

1216
01:06:52,800 --> 01:06:56,960
Speaker 1: on ten twenty three during our first periscope session. Uh

1217
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,160
Speaker 1: And and you know, as I've said before, we haven't

1218
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 1: periscoped yet, but I've leave you can interact directly with

1219
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:03,800
Speaker 1: us there too. You can type in questions for us,

1220
01:07:03,800 --> 01:07:06,440
Speaker 1: and you know we'll try to answer them. Uh And

1221
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 1: Monster Science. So we're big monster fans around here, and

1222
01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: we've got four brand new episodes of Monster Science coming

1223
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 1: up at the end of the month. All through the month,

1224
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:18,280
Speaker 1: we're gonna be posting the first two seasons of Monster

1225
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:22,160
Speaker 1: Science to our social media accounts Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler,

1226
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 1: where you can find us with the handle below the Mind.

1227
01:07:25,480 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: And finally, if people want to reach out to us

1228
01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:32,680
Speaker 1: and let us know about their costuming experience and whether

1229
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 1: what kind of effects has had on their identity or

1230
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:37,160
Speaker 1: what they've seen with other people's identity, where can they

1231
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: reach out to us at and maybe we can respond

1232
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:41,240
Speaker 1: to that during the periscope session. We just reach out

1233
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: to us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

1234
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1235
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:57,800
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com